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Links and Changes

The most improper job of any man, even saints…is bossing around other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. – J.R.R. Tolkien

I’ve decided to make a few changes in the new year, and figured this was as good a venue as any to explain them; that’s why the Links column appears before “That Was the Week That Was” this time. Actually, it will be that way next week as well, then it won’t be for a few weeks, then it will be again for a few more before finally settling into its normal Sunday slot in March. The reason for this is complicated, but it’s mostly based in my sense of aesthetics and organization. So far, TW3 columns have been numbered by the week of 2012 on which they reported (and after #7, in which they fell). But if I continued the sequence beyond #52, what would the numbers actually mean? Of course they’d represent the actual number of such columns I had done, but in a couple of years that wouldn’t be very useful (quick, which week of which year is column #381?) So I resolved to change the system. When I first established the Links columns last summer I decided to number them by the weeks since the beginning of the blog, 131 as of this week. But take a look at that number; by pure coincidence it also works as a designator for week and year (2013 week 1, see?) So I couldn’t resist using the pattern while it lasts; for the next nine weeks my TW3 columns will bear the numbers previously associated with the Links columns, and the latter will have names so as to avoid repetition. 140 and above break the pattern, so starting in week 10 of this year I’ll change the system again to its permanent configuration, return the absolute week-numbers to the Links columns and never have to mess with it again.

Since I’m a believer in fair exchange, I couldn’t let TW3 steal the Links columns’ number system without giving it something in return, and that is the “this week in blog history” feature. Actually, it makes much more sense here; TW3 is usually overlong and needs editing to bring it under 2000 words, while Links columns tend to be under 500 words and could use the padding. Transferring the feature will thus make my life a little easier and again, please my sense of aesthetics. Furthermore, I’ve decided to shuffle the metaupdates in with the updates in TW3; from now on all items will appear in chronological order of their parent articles, with only new titles out of that sequence at the top.

Speaking of fair exchange, our (only) video today is a 64-second primer on what libertarianism actually means; I’m rather tired of people who imagine that they oppose its principles foolishly attempting to define it by particular (and usually extreme) positions taken by some people who label themselves libertarians, rather than by its true defining principle: the right of each individual to self-ownership. The “definition by cherry-picked planks” approach is as absurd as claiming that there were no progressives before the mid-20th century because all progressives support nationalized medicine. Next time someone tries this, I’m simply going to link back to this column and to “The Philosophy of Liberty” from my resource box, and leave it at that. But just to demonstrate I haven’t lost my sense of humor about it, I’ve also featured one of those “What people think” posters on the topic. This week’s top link contributor was Grace (who supplied everything down to the video), but four others provided two of the links after the video each: Jack Shafer (first and sixth), Mike Siegel (second and third), Radley Balko (fourth and fifth), and Michael Whiteacre (seventh and “book burning”). The eighth arrived via Walter Olson, the ninth via Franklin Harris, “doormat” via Lenore Skenazy, “Godwin’s Law” via Antonio Lorusso and “Spirograph” via EconJeff.

8 Responses

“The Art is Long and Time is Fleeting” – I prefer another version of “Ars Longa, Vita Brevis”, the scholar’s lament:
“The Life so short! The Art so long to learn!”
The more you know, the more you are aware of what you don’t know.

Politician proposes that US government wipe out its debt by minting a trillion-dollar coin and depositing it in the treasury.

That’s basically how it will be paid off. Actually – you’d have to mint about 16 of those puppies in order to “pay it off”. And – once you do it – a loaf of bread will cost you northward of $200.00 (and I’m just guessing here cuz it could be MUCH higher). Remember what printing too much money gets you …

By the way – if you want, you can BE a Zimbabwean BILLIONAIRE quite easily. Simply exchange $7.00 (plus shipping) for a cool 1B note on Ebay!! Tell them Robert Mugabe – the financial genius of the world – sent you.

I’m kind of curious what would happen if they did just print their way out of the current debt. If I may do some armchair economics which I’m totally unqualified for:

Assuming it was a one-time event, there would probably be a one-time hyperinflation that would effectively wipe out all private savings and debts. The rich wouldn’t be affected that much, I think — their holdings will be diversified into a lot of things that aren’t cash. The poor and the balance-sheet-insolvent middle class might actually benefit. The upper middle class (who probably have a larger fraction of holdings in cash), solvent lower middle, and anyone with substantial treasury bonds would be hardest hit.

And, of course, the USG would be totally unable to borrow money for a long, long time. Which would enforce a balanced budget, I suppose.

I’m unsure whether this scenario is better or worse than simply defaulting on the debt. What other effects does hyperinflation have?

(ongoing money printing resulting in indefinite hyperinflation would be a different case, I think…and almost certainly disastrous)

(I might have gotten that link here. I will be rather embarrassed if I got that link here.)

Anyway, it’s interesting stuff. I lean libertarian myself most of the time, and so do most of the communities I have contact with. I was interested because I’m usually only exposed to intelligent libertarian arguments and very bad (usually trollish) non-libertarian arguments. The imbalance bugs me.

I’m not so certain of all that. The Wikipedia article on Kircher is a bit more informative than the NY Times review of Glassie’s book.

I’m no Kircher scholar, and never read any of his work. But it appears to me from the Wikipedia article that his work was more half baked than bogus from inception. I’d compare his work (as reported) to various modern crank scientific papers which get a few things right, but proceed down screwy paths the author thinks make grander theories.

Kircher got some things right, just not enough. For example, he apparently theorized that hieroglyphs expressed phonemic content related to Coptic. Champollion based his translations on the same very correct idea. Kircher just got carried away by his belief that some glyphs were also mystical symbols, and proceeded headlong down that screwy path.

He apparently got the cartography or geography of China acceptably correct, but little else. He understood that fossils (at least some fossils) were animals which had become stone. He was among the earliest to hypothesize a germ theory of disease. He strongly advocated that the “magic lantern” (slide projector these days) was a product of physical processes and not the work of the devil. He apparently described perfectly valid methods to generate and enumerate all combinations of finite sets.

The sheer breadth of his studies is impressive. The flaw in his thinking seemed to be the inability to distinguish rigorous analysis from fantasy. But he did do some partial rigorous analysis. The cases of “ancient astronauts, homeopathy, conspiracy theories and ‘sex trafficking'” are bogus from inception, and involve no rigorous analysis at all. That’s why I’d call his work half baked

Back in ’99 and 2000, jihadist groups were starting to kill each other off. A trend I wish had continued.

The Antarctic mission is very cool (in both senses of the word). Skip the comments there, though. They are a pain (as usual).

I’ll leave the video alone.

The trillion-dollar coin sounds good to me: a bit of nonsense to deal with a bit of nonsense.

Louis Michael Seidman’s argument might be valid if it weren’t for amendments. Anything the dead white slave-owning males got wrong can be corrected via amendment. Actually, I more than half suspect that Seidman is making a “modest proposal.”

Here’s another correlation (and a true one): on average, the better a reader a child is, the bigger his (or her) feet are.

Yes, yes I think I will read some more by David S. F. Portree. Thanks for pointing me his way.

I personally care care what the scorecard is on tax hikes vs. spending cuts. I want to know WHAT’S being cut, and WHOSE taxes are being raised. If they cut $10 billion from the Drug War or $10 billion from fixing decrepit bridges, well either way that’s $10 billion, but I know I’ll feel better if they cut the former and worse if they cut the latter.

What is Olefin?

Hey, if the CIA and Wall Street are above the law, why not the EPA?

If people want to burn their own books… [shrugs] This isn’t being mandated. Making some big production of ‘turning in’ video games is silly, but it isn’t Big Brother. The whole thing makes me want to find out where to download Rapelay, which isn’t the effect they were going for, I’m sure.

Or play with a Spirograph! WHEEE!!! Amazing what you can do with a pen and a couple of plastic circles with gear teeth and holes.

Well, spacemen would doubtlessly have moved beyond both socialism and capitalism. There’s no reason to think that we’ve developed the ultimate system already here on Earth.

“Who’s Attacking the Constitution Now” is right on, to use a phrase I haven’t used in a while.

OK, now I’ve got a YouTube video to watch about some sort of laser 3-D Spirograph sumthinerother.

Maggie on Twitter

Boring but necessary legal stuff

All original content on this website (i.e. all of my columns, pages and anything else which I write myself) is protected under international copyright law as of the time it is posted; though you may link to it as you please or quote passages (as long as you attribute the quote to me), please do not reproduce whole columns without my express written permission. In other words, you have to say "pretty please with sugar on top" first, and then wait for me to say "okey-dokey".